


It's Raining Somewhere Else

by Blizzard96



Category: A.C.E (Beat Interactive Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Gen, Magical Realism, based on the story of Omelas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 20:10:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15469086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blizzard96/pseuds/Blizzard96
Summary: “What do you think it’s like? Living in the sun?”Sehyoon turned to look at the glowing light sitting on top of the hills miles and miles away. “I think it must be lonely.”





	It's Raining Somewhere Else

Jun was seven when his mother told him about the boy who lives in the sun. The day was bright and warm as it always was, as it always had been since the day Jun could first remember.  There was a festival that day, and his mother held one of his sticky hands as he licked at an ice cream cone in the other. They finally decided to sit on a bench when Jun had finished his ice cream and his mother tried to wipe off his mouth with some wipes from her purse.

“Mom, why do we only have this festival every ten years?” Jun asked, squirming as his mother scrubbed at his cheeks.

She laughed. “You just want to go to a festival every day, don’t you?”

Jun nodded furiously. “Yeah! We should have it every day!”

“It’s a special occasion,” she explained, finally done with wiping off Jun’s face. “We hold the Sun Festival every ten years to decide who will someday become the sun.”

“What?” Jun asked, face scrunching up in confusion. He turned to look at the sun, sitting on the hills in the distance. The light from the orb was blinding, and he quickly looked away to blink the spots out of his vision.

“There is a person who lives in the sun,” his mother explained, “They make sure that the rains don’t overwhelm us. You remember the last Rain Day, right?”

Jun nodded. The Rain Day was always on the first of the month. Jun liked the Rain Days because he did not have to go to school, but whenever he looked outside he felt like he was going to get swept away by the raging storm. The day was always full of thunder and howling winds. He usually bundled himself up in his room under a pile of blankets on those days while his mother made him hot chocolate.

“I don’t like Rain Days,” Jun said.

His mother nodded. “Well, we used to not know when the Rain Days would come,” she said, “But now, we’re able to control them so that they only come when we need them.”

“How?”

“The child in the sun holds onto the rain all of the other days,” she explained.

Jun frowned. “How?”

His mother pursed her lips. “Magic,” she finally said. When he was older, Jun would realize that his mother had never questioned it herself, but seven year old Jun just nodded. 

“So they make sure that we don’t have the rain on other days?”

She nodded. “That’s right. We choose another child every ten years to be trained to hold the rains.”

Jun’s eyes widened. “Could I be chosen?” he asked, frightened. He didn’t want to be near the storms that lashed at his windows every month, much less hold them all the other days.

To his relief, his mother shook his head. “No, you’re too old,” she said, ruffling his hair. Jun protested and tried to move away. “The child would have to be four now,” she said. “They then train for ten years and then leave to live in the sun when they are fourteen.” She brightened, sensing an opportunity for a lesson. “Can you count fourteen plus ten?” she asked, holding out her hands.

Jun frowned, trying to recall the counting lessons he’d had in school and began counting up the numbers on his mother’s fingers. “Twenty four!” he finally proclaimed proudly.

“That’s right!” his mother said with a smile, planting a kiss on his cheek. “So the child in the sun will be twenty four by the time they leave.”

“That’s old!” Jun said, making a face.

His mother laughed. “It is a long time,” she agreed. Jun was about to ask what the child was did once they left the sun, but got distracted by a loud popping noise. He looked over to see confetti exploding out of colorful tubes and he gasped. He leapt off the bench, and would have fallen onto his face had his mother not caught him in time, before hurriedly dragging his mother along to see whatever the performance was. He did not think about the child in the sun again for a very long time.

 

* * *

 

By age seventeen, Jun rarely thought about the child in the sun. He knew it was a girl and her time would be up as soon as the festival that year ended. There were times when he would look out his window at the sun shining in the distance and wonder what it was like to sit there all day, holding onto the rains instead of going to school or making friends. It made him sad, but only in a disconnected way like when he heard about something awful happening on the news to someone else.

He sat in the classroom during lunchtime, eating next to his friend Sehyoon. All around him, his classmates were excitedly discussing what they would be doing at the Sun Festival that weekend. Jun took a bite of his lunch and turned to see Sehyoon absentmindedly scrolling through his phone. 

“Are you going to the Sun Festival?” Jun asked. It was a pointless question as everyone in their town went, but there was little else to talk about. Nothing good or bad ever really happened in their town, so it was rare to have an occasion this large to discuss.

“It only comes every ten years,” Sehyoon said in place of an answer. The other put his phone down to look back at Jun. “I think Donghun’s going too.”

Jun nodded at the mention of their friend a year above them. “He’s probably running one of the stalls for the school.” The student council ran a school booth for the festival. Donghun had been complaining for the past month that he would have to be helping out at the booth rather than going around and enjoying the festival.

“We should probably go visit him then so he doesn’t think that we’ve abandoned him,” Jun laughed. Sehyoon nodded in agreement. From there, their conversation dissolved into talks about the school’s dance team that they were both on and Jun’s choir practice that evening. The sun continued to shine outside; another perfect day.

 

* * *

 

Donghun was indeed irritated by the time that they found him and the school’s booth that weekend. He was grumpily sitting behind a table, arms crossed and narrowing his eyes at anyone who dared meet his gaze. Jun quietly snapped a photo on his phone to use as material to tease the other later as he and Sehyoon walked up to the booth.

“I think you’re going to scare people away rather than get them to donate to our school,” Sehyoon said, raising an eyebrow at Donghun.

“I still don’t get why I have to sit here!” Donghun exploded, having evidently been stewing in his own frustration for a while. “It’s just signing up for the school newsletter and handing out invitations to our annual school play! Everyone already knows about both of those!” And it was true. Everyone knew everything that happened in their town.

“At least it’s only for another hour and then someone else will take over,” Jun tried to reassure him. Despite that, Donghun was still displeased.

“Come find us when you’re done,” Sehyoon said, starting to tug Jun away. “We can all get some food together. How about that stall with the fried chicken?”

Donghun perked up a bit at the mention of food. “Fine. But if I can’t find you guys in fifteen minutes, I’m going to the stall anyway.”

 

* * *

 

After leaving Donghun to his duties, the duo headed off back into the maze of festival booths. Eventually they wound up in a clearing with a stage and rows of benches set up. On the stage was a teenager holding the hand of a small child standing next to the town’s mayor. People were lining up to go onto the stage and shake the mayor’s hand. Occasionally people would smile at the teenager, who gave them a pained smile in return. Jun thought the boy looked extremely uncomfortable with the whole procession, his grim expression reminiscent someone about to be led to their doom.

“Horrible, isn’t it?” Jun looked away in surprise to see that a boy with bleached blonde hair was standing between him and Sehyoon. Judging by Sehyoon’s startled expression, he hadn’t noticed the boy either until that moment.

“I…what?!” Jun asked, not knowing what question to ask first. Sehyoon pulled back from the boy a bit.

“That,” the boy said, unfazed by their reactions. He pointed at the procession on stage.

“Who are you?” Sehyoon asked, narrowing his eyes.

The new arrival blinked, as if he’d suddenly realized he’d never introduced himself and was, in fact, standing next to two strangers. “Kim Byeongkwan.”

“Uh, nice to meet you,” Jun said. “I’m Jun. That’s Sehyoon.” Sehyoon waved warily and Byeongkwan nodded.

“What do you mean that it’s horrible?” Sehyoon asked after a moment, apparently deciding that Byeongkwan was harmless.

“I mean what we’ve been doing in the past,” Byeongkwan said. “And what we’re doing now.” He turned back to the procession before gesturing to the teenager and child on stage. “Those two are the next suns,” he explained.

Jun did a double take, looking at boy on stage. It suddenly made sense why the boy was standing next to the mayor. “So that means…” Jun trailed off.

“This is his last day of freedom, if it can be called that,” Byeongkwan said. “He’s been trained for this since he was four, just like the kid he’s next to is about to be.”

Jun felt a sort of churning in his stomach. It was the kind of feeling he got whenever he told his mom a lie, only intensified by a good amount. Abruptly, Jun realized it was guilt. 

“He’s going to live in the sun,” Sehyoon said. It was an obvious fact and one he had heard his entire life, but Jun was only now starting to realize the true magnitude of that statement.

Byeongkwan nodded. “Ten years.”

The squirming feeling in Jun’s stomach made him feel vaguely nauseous. “Someone has to control the rains,” Jun said, repeating what he’d heard in all of his classes. Normally this was all it took to shove thoughts of the person in the sun from his mind but now, staring at the other boy’s face, Jun felt a lot less convinced that their town’s methods were justified.

Sehyoon gave Jun a look, and Jun was briefly worried that the other boy was able to see through Jun’s internal conflict. The other had always been good at reading people. “If no one controls the rains, we’ll be flooded.”

Byeongkwan shrugged. “Maybe,” he said, staring intensely at the boy on the stage. “Or maybe we’re just too afraid to change things.”

“What else can we do?” Jun asked.

“I don’t know,” Byeongkwan replied, “But the fact that he is going to have to live alone in the sun for ten years just doesn’t sit right with me.” The blonde turned around and walked away from the procession, leaving Jun and Sehyoon in stunned silence.

“What was that all about?” Jun asked.

Sehyoon shrugged. “I don’t know but…” he trailed off, “I want to get in line.”

“Really?” Jun asked, not expecting the other to say that.

Sehyoon nodded. “I feel like we should meet him now.” Without any further words, Sehyoon started walking toward the back of the line with Jun scrambling after him. While they waited in silence, Jun took some time to think over Byeongkwan’s words. He’d never seriously questioned their town’s methods before. It just seemed like something everyone accepted. 

Without noticing, Jun and Sehyoon were next in line to meet the mayor and, more importantly in Jun’s opinion, see the boy who was taking over the role of holding the rains back from overwhelming their town. 

‘What a heavy thing to place on a child,’ Jun thought, eyes landing on the the four year old next to the teenager. They stepped forward.

“Well, hello there!” the mayor said jovially, beaming at Sehyoon and Jun. Jun had never met the mayor before, but the laugh lines around his eyes along with his firm handshake made Jun think he was a generally kind and dependable man. Jun met his gaze wondering how this man could sentence someone to ten years in isolation.

“Hello, sir,” Sehyoon said, thankfully saving the both of them.

“You boys enjoying the festival?” he asked. The teenager next to him shifted his weight, as if tired from standing for so long. The mayor took no notice.

“Yes, sir,” Jun found himself saying. “We don’t really remember our first one.”

The mayor chuckled. “I’m sure you don’t. You two must have been quite young!” They both nodded. “Well, we made certain to go all out this year! If you haven’t already, you should drop by the pie stall. My wife made the most delicious apple pies this year…” 

Though he tried to focus on what the mayor was saying, Jun’s eyes kept drifting back to the two boys next to him. The teenager didn’t appear much younger than Jun, and he was trying to keep the four year old calm. The boy never looked at Jun in the eyes, instead preferring to either focus on the child next to him or stare at the ground.

“…but what can you do?” the mayor laughed. Jun snapped his attention back, having missed half the conversation. Sehyoon was giving a halfhearted fake laugh, and Jun hurried to copy him. The mayor apparently didn’t notice their lack of enthusiasm. “It was great to see you boys this year! Remember what I said about our office’s bake sale next week!” Jun couldn’t recall what the man had said, but it was clear they were both being dismissed. Sehyoon looked as hesitant to leave the stage as Jun was.

“Wait!” Jun blurted without thinking. The mayor’s eyebrows raised. Jun turned to the teenager, meeting his eyes for the first time. “What’s your name?” The teenager looked shocked to be spoken to. 

“Oh, that’s not important,” the mayor hurried to say, but Jun ignored him.

“Yuchan,” the boy said softly. “My name is Kang Yuchan.” Sehyoon and Jun were hurried off the stage by an attendant quickly afterwards. Despite the sun shining brightly on both of them as it always did, Jun felt cold.

 

* * *

 

“Finally!” Donghun hummed in contentment. They’d just gotten their paper plates filled with fried chicken from the stall and were sitting at one of the provided picnic tables. Families and other teenagers sat all around them talking and laughing and playing games. Jun and Sehyoon both quietly picked at their food. Jun found it hard to swallow around the feeling of his guts twisting themselves into knots.

“Mm-hmm,” Jun agreed.

Donghun looked up from his plate and frowned at his two friends. “What’s wrong with you guys? Did you both already eat or something?”

Sehyoon shook his head. “No, we just… met someone.”

“Oh? Who?” Donghun asked, before taking a big bite of chicken.

“Kang Yuchan,” Jun said. Donghun frowned and swallowed.

“That name sounds familiar,” he said, “Oh wait! That’s the new rain holder!” Both Sehyoon and Jun grimaced at that. “You guys went to the stage?”

“Yeah,” Sehyoon confirmed.

“Wow,” Donghun said, dropping the chicken bones onto his plate and wiping his fingers on a napkin. “I wonder what it must be like to be trained for something like holding the rains.” He said it casually, much like Jun would have less than an hour ago. Now that thought cause dread to clog his throat.

“Is it wrong though?” Jun asked, suddenly. Donghun blinked at the outburst, and even Sehyoon was staring at him with concern.

“Is what wrong?” Donghun asked. 

“Is it wrong that he has to be trapped there,” Jun clarified, “while we can enjoy being out. here?”

“Someone has to hold the rains back,” Donghun said, looking at Jun with concern. “You know that. You know how bad Rain Days are. This is the best way.”

“But why?” Jun asked. “Why can’t we work on making a better solution?”

“Well, we…” Donghun frowned. “It’s just how we’ve always done it, and it works well enough.”

“Does it though?” Jun asked. “Is it really working if someone has to suffer?” An awkward silence lapsed over the table as Donghun and Jun glared at each other. Sehyoon looked between the two of them.

“Okay, let’s not have this conversation here,” Sehyoon said, noticing some of the families starting to look at them. Donghun pushed away from the table quickly and strode away to throw his garbage in the trash can with more force than necessary. Jun closed his eyes and let out a breath. 

“Do you think I’m over thinking things?” Jun asked, opening his eyes and turned to Sehyoon. 

The other looked thoughtful. “No.” They both got to their feet and set off to find a trash can for their barely touched chicken.

“What about you?” Jun asked.

“What about me?” Sehyoon parroted, clearly knowing what Jun was talking about. 

Jun rolled his eyes. “Is it okay for us to live like this when we know someone is holding the rains back and suffering?”

Sehyoon stopped walking, forcing Jun to stop as well. He bit his lip. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “I get why Donghun said that this is how we’ve always done it, but… I’m not sure.”

Jun sighed. “My mom always said this place was paradise. We have all the sunlight and warmth that we could want and nothing bad ever happens.” He paused. “What do you think it’s like? Living in the sun?”

Sehyoon turned to look at the glowing light sitting on top of the hills miles and miles away. “I think it must be lonely.”

 

* * *

 

Weeks passed, and eventually the awkward tension between Donghun and Jun dissolved, much to both Jun and Sehyoon’s relief. It happened when Donghun found the two of them studying in the library one day and dropped into an empty seat at their table, startling both. He was frowning intensely at the table, before he let out a sigh.

“I’m sorry,” he said, finally meeting Jun’s eyes. Jun was stunned by the amount of sincerity in both his look and his tone. “I shouldn’t have gotten mad at the festival, and I should have listened to you.”

Jun blinked. “It’s okay,” he said, “I’m sorry I kept arguing with you.”

Donghun shook his head. “No, you were right. I’ve been thinking about it ever since then. It’s pretty messed up that we’re all okay with keeping someone so isolated and holding back all the rain while we get to go out and enjoy our lives.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “That boy…”

“Yuchan,” Jun interjected.

Donghun nodded. “Yuchan. He’s never going to have a childhood. He’s been training for this since he was four, and by the time he’s free he’ll be in his twenties. He doesn’t deserve that. No one deserves that.”

“We can’t do anything about it,” Sehyoon said, looking an odd mix between frustrated and resigned. Silence fell between the three of them because it was true. It was common knowledge in their town that if the person living in the sun were to ever leave, everyone would be at the mercy of the rains and the elements. Was one boy’s life more important than everyone else’s?

 

* * *

 

_Four years later_

 

“We should visit him,” Jun said. He was sitting at a picnic table with Donghun and Sehyoon in the local park. They didn’t need to ask what Jun was talking about, since they spoke of little else these days. Ever since Jun and Sehyoon had met Yuchan for themselves years ago, they’d discussed visiting. Despite proposing possible travel dates for years, Jun finally believed that going and seeing the sun for himself was necessary.

Sehyoon nodded. “I’ll call Byeongkwan.” Not too many months after the festival, Sehyoon had run into Byeongkwan at the local grocery store. He’d spoken with the other boy for a long time in the freezer aisle apparently before bringing him back into their friend group. Donghun had been hesitant at first because of the new arrival’s fairly outlandish ideas regarding the Rain Days, but Byeongkwan could be persuasive when he wanted to be. Within a couple of years, he’d won Donghun over to their cause with some carefully crafted arguments.

“What are we going to say when we visit?” Donghun asked. It was not illegal to visit the sun and see the rain holder, in fact the mayor of their town encouraged it. The mayor maintained that no one would be able to see the rains with their own eyes and declare their methods of holding them back unnecessary.

Jun shrugged. “We’ll have to wing it.”

“The journey is pretty long,” Sehyoon added. “We can brainstorm on the way.”

Donghun nodded, still looking uneasy. Jun didn’t blame him. “Maybe holding back the rains isn’t as bad as we think,” Jun said, not quite believing the words himself. After all, if it wasn’t that bad there would be no reason to isolate the sun like they did.

 

* * *

 

The road to the sun was an hours long journey, but it could still be reached within a day. Close enough to be approached, but far enough and bright enough that traveling there was undesirable for most of the townspeople. Jun wondered if it had been designed with that purpose in mind.

The sun had always been sitting on the hills as long as he could remember (and as long as his mother and grandparents could remember), but he’d never really looked at it for very long. It was too bright to stare at, but with few distractions on the road there was little else to do. The sun got larger as they approached, going from the kind of thing that was just an abstract concept back home, to a huge oppressive weight that couldn’t be avoided. Jun wondered how he’d managed to live with this hanging over his head every day.

“Do you think it’s as hot as it looks?” Byeongkwan asked, squinting at the orb still a few miles away.

“It can’t be,” Donghun reasoned. “If it were really that hot, no one would be able to live in it.”

“It’s probably magical,” Sehyoon said. They continued to walk in silence, the heat becoming more and more unbearable and the light growing even brighter.

“It’s almost like it doesn’t want us to reach it,” Donghun muttered to Jun.

Jun nodded in reply. “It’s probably why not that many people make this trip out here.”

“Where do you think the people go?” Sehyoon asked an hour later. They all turned to him.

“Which people?” Byeongkwan asked. 

“The people who leave after they see it,” Sehyoon said, tilting his head toward the sun. “The people who leave town.” He voiced the one of the questions they’d all been wondering about when they started the journey. 

Usually those who made the trip returned saddened and frustrated, but eventually they would move on and continue life as usual. But occasionally people did not return from their trip to the sun. They would walk out of the beautiful, sunny town on a dusty path, past the town’s gates, and never return. No one in the town talked about those people afterwards; it was like they never existed in the first place.

“I think there are other towns,” Byeongkwan said. “I think there are places where they don’t control the rains like this.”

“How would they survive the rains?” Donghun asked, raising an eyebrow.

“They must have stronger houses,” Byeongkwan replied.

“I’m not sure if I’d like to live somewhere if I didn’t know when the rains are coming,” Donghun said with a grimace.

“I don’t know,” Byeongkwan said. “Maybe it’d be nice to have some unpredictability for once.”

Jun looked to the youngest. “Even bad things?”

“Yeah,” Byeongkwan said. “I feel like it would let me enjoy the good things more.” He glanced behind him to look at the town the came from, already small in the distance. “I don't know about all of you, but I feel like no one is ever really happy in our town.”

Donghun frowned. “I’ve been happy before.”

“Well, yes, but nothing ever surprises anyone,” Byeongkwan tried to clarify, “There’s never anything truly exciting. I feel like everyone needs at least a little bit of surprise in their life.” Donghun’s brow furrowed at that as he considered Byeongkwan’s words. Privately, Jun agreed with Byeongkwan. If he could describe their town in one word, it was “safe”. Safe as in there was never any risk. Safe as in he knew that everyone spent their lives in one place, would be born, live, and die all in that one town. Some, if not most, were completely content with that and Jun did not hold it against them, but he wanted something else.

“We’re here,” Sehyoon said, breaking Jun out of his thoughts. Jun hadn’t even noticed how big the sun had become. He looked up to see the glowing sphere in front of him, somehow slightly dimmer now that they were just feet from it’s imposing presence.

“Who wants to ring the bell?” Donghun asked, pointing to a rope hanging in the front next to a rectangular panel cut into the orb that Jun could only assume was the front door.

Jun stepped forward. “I’ll do it.”

 

* * *

 

_They’d dropped Yuchan off with little ceremony compared to the Sun Festival. If he strained his ears, Yuchan could imagine that he still heard the music from the festivities in the distance. The mayor had given him a brusque nod and his successor, a four year old boy whose name Yuchan had never been told, gave him a tiny wave before they left him with just the attendant. The attendant had pulled a cord and opened the sliding door in the front of the sun. The first thing Yuchan had noticed had been the water._

_A wall of water that nearly came up to his thighs greeted them as the door opened, yet it never seemed to spill out from the sun, as if there was an invisible barrier over the door frame keeping it contained. Yuchan could hear a rumbling, as if a thunderstorm was trapped inside as well. Suddenly a young woman appeared in the doorway in a swish of water._

_“Is it over?” she whispered, almost desperately. Her eyes were dark, her hair drenched, and her skin pale. She clung to the door frame like it was a life ine. Yuchan noticed with a lurching in his stomach that her clothing, wet and stuck to her body, was similar to his own clothing that had been given to him at the festival._

_“Yes,” he attendant said gently, taking the woman’s hand. She nodded slowly, as if barely believing it was happening._

_Yuchan was pushed forward. He gulped. ‘This is what I’ve been training for,’ he thought, eyeing the dark waters nervously. As the attendant pulled the woman out, Yuchan was pushed into the water, his hands flailing out to catch him._

_His arms landed on nothing until he hit the floor of the room, and he immediately pushed himself back to his feet. It was dark in the room, nearly pitch black, and Yuchan realized the door had been shut behind him. He spun around, his fingers searching the smooth wall, but he couldn’t find the the seam where the opening had been._

_All his lessons up to this point had told him not to panic, that there was nothing inside the sun that could hurt him, but some deep inset instincts had Yuchan nearly hyperventilating at how everything was dark and cold, how the water almost felt like it was rising, how the only source of light was the ray clouds that he could barely make out when his eyes adjusted. There was a rumble of thunder, and briefly, the room lit up as lightning flashed overhead, too close for comfort. Yuchan pressed himself against the wall, but it was no use as cold rain started to pour onto his head._

_The next few days passed like this, Yuchan wandering around his new place (his new prison, as he refused to call it a home) searching for any place to rest. He couldn’t get tired, didn’t need to eat or sleep, and there was no escape. The rain didn’t always pour, but it was often enough that he could never truly relax._

_He began to track time by the Rain Days, which once a month allowed the clouds to flow out the top of the sun and leave him alone in the water for one day. On those days he floated on his back in the pool of water, staring at the ceiling of his prison and wondering how long ten years in this place felt. How had the rain holders before him been able to do this?_

_Some days, the seam in the door would open and Yuchan would watch as people from the town would gaze into his prison. The first few times, he cried out, begging them to help him, to stay, but his words got lost as the storm above would pick up intensity. The visitors would look horrified and angry, but they would always leave and not return for him. Eventually, Yuchan gave up hope on trying to communicate with them. Now he would just stare back at them, wondering if they felt lucky that it was him and not themselves. Yuchan had long since accepted that no one would be coming for him._

 

* * *

 

Jun pulled the rope dangling above the ground. There was no bell that sounded, but a panel in the orb slid open. Jun saw a wall of water swirling behind it and immediately jumped backward to avoid being splashed, but the water stayed inside the boundaries. He got closer warily and sensed that his friends were doing the same next to him.

It took Jun a few minutes to peer adjust to the darkness inside the sun, but when he could see he found that the entirety of the inside was filled with water. When he looked up, a storm raged around the ceiling of the small room. Jun squinted, looking for any sign of the boy he met at the festival.

“There!” Sehyoon said, pointing to a far corner. Jun narrowed his eyes in that direction, and barely made out the shape of a person’s figure. The person was sitting on the ground, the water coming up to his chest. “Yuchan!”  The figure’s head snapped up and looked at them. Otherwise, he made no movements in their direction. 

“Is he okay?” Donghun muttered, concerned.

Byeongkwan shook his head. “Would you be?” He looked up at the storm, which gave a loud boom and suddenly rain was falling down inside, churning the water but somehow never raising the level of it. The sound was almost deafening, and Jun doubted any further attempts at communication would be effective.

“Yuchan!” Jun yelled, involuntarily lurching forward. He didn’t know what he planned to do, but Donghun and Sehyoon both held him back before he could breach the entrance.

“Wait!” Donghun said, looking conflicted.

“Wait for what?” Jun snapped. He stared the other in the eyes for a moment, and they had a silent conversation. Donghun nodded slightly and released his hold on Jun. Sehyoon did the same with a concerned expression. Jun squared his shoulders and took a deep breath before walking into the wall of water. He could hear Byeongkwan and Sehyoon’s surprised exclamations behind him, but he kept going. He waded slowly through the water and cupped a hand over his eyes to try and see through the rain, ignoring the cold suffocating feeling of being drenched head to toe.

“I’m going in too,” he heard Donghun say from behind him, but Jun didn't turn around, determined to reach the boy.

When he finally found Yuchan (nearly stumbling on top of him), the boy’s eyes were wide with shock. He looked up to meet Jun’s eyes. “You came in,” he said, his voice noticeably thinner and weaker than when he’d told Jun his name at the Sun Festival years ago. Jun could barely hear it through the storm.

For some reason, Jun found himself laughing a little sheepishly. “I did,” he agreed. He was freezing under the downpour, and he felt like he wouldn’t be warm again, even after all the hot baths in the world. His stomach dropped as he realized Yuchan had been living like this for four years so far and was expected to continue this way for another six.

“You’re crazy,” Byeongkwan shouted over the rain, appearing at Jun’s side with a mixture of shock and awe apparent in his tone. He shook his head in disbelief. The others appeared next to Jun as well.

“We’re all crazy, apparently,” Donghun grumbled to Jun. He looked down at Yuchan, and Jun could feel his friend softening as he regarded the rain holder. “You must be Yuchan.”

The boy in front of them nodded. “I am,” he said just loud enough to hear, eyes darting between the four of them, as if he didn’t know where to look.

“Can you stand?” Sehyoon asked, offering a hand down. Yuchan took it warily, as if Sehyoon might drop him, but he got to his feet.

“How are…? Why did you all come in?” Yuchan asked.

The other three turned to Jun, as if expecting him to have a good answer, but Jun’s mind was blank. “You just looked lonely,” Jun said honestly, running his fingers through his drenched hair.

Yuchan blinked. “And you came to talk to me just because of that?”

Despite the coldness seeping into his bones, Jun felt himself growing hot with embarrassment. “Well, yeah. Do we need another reason?”

Yuchan’s mouth dropped at a loss for words. As they stood there for few minutes regarding each other, the storm above them subsided to a grumble and the rain slowed to only a light drizzle. Jun was grateful that he no longer needed to shout. “No one ever comes in,” Yuchan finally said, unnecessarily.

“Well, we’re here now,” Byeongkwan said, wiping some remaining rain drops from his eyes. Unexpectedly, Yuchan burst out crying.

Donghun looked at Jun with alarm. Jun was also at a loss for what to do with his hands, and impulsively wrapped Yuchan in a hug. “It’s okay,” Jun said, looking at the others wildly. He patted Yuchan’s back hesitantly. Sehyoon made a helpless face and shrugged, while Byeongkwan echoed Jun’s reassurances. Yuchan clung to Jun tighter.

“I…thought that…no one… would ever…come,” Yuchan gasped out between sobs. Jun felt his heart break for the other boy just a little bit more. He couldn’t remember why he was ever okay with the thought of him living in these conditions for years.

Apparently, the others all felt the same as they all exchanged guilty looks. “It’s going to be okay now,” Sehyoon said. Eventually, Yuchan’s sobs calmed down, and his chest stopped heaving. Yuchan pushed away form Jun looking vaguely embarrassed and scrubbed at the tears on his face.

“I’m sorry,” he said, voice rough from crying.

“Don’t apologize,” Jun said. “It’s okay to cry.”

“What do we do now?” Donghun murmured, low enough for only Jun to hear. Jun bit his lip. He knew in his heart that if Yuchan left his prison, the rains would crash back down on the town and all the people he loved that lived here. However, leaving Yuchan here was an equally unacceptable option.

“Thank you,” Yuchan said to all of them, “But I know you have to go. I’ll be okay. It’s only for a little while, and then I’ll get to go back outside.” He said the last sentence without any feeling, like he’d rehearsed the words in his head countless times to convince himself to stay trapped in this place. That was what made up Jun’s mind for him.

“No,” Jun said, surprising everyone. “No, you can leave with us.”

“If we take him back to town, the rains will start up,” Sehyoon said, looking as conflicted as Jun had felt. “They’ll just force him to come back here.”

“Then we won’t take him back to town,” Jun said. “We’ll leave town.” Everyone looked at him with alarm. Jun had spoken the words with little thought, but as soon as he said them he knew it was their only option if they wanted to get Yuchan out of there.

“Not that I don’t want to help him,” Donghun said slowly, “But will our town be okay with this much rain?”

“They will,” Byeongkwan piped up. They all looked at him. “I think… I think our town has stagnated because we’re afraid of the rain, but we shouldn’t be. I think the only way we, the only way that they, will be able to grow is if our town learns how to use the rain rather than locking it up and only letting it out when it’s convenient for them.”

Sehyoon nodded as his friend spoke. “I agree.”

Donghun sighed, looking to Yuchan and then Jun. “I’ll do it if that’s what we all decide.”

Jun nodded slowly, before regarding the dark clouds hanging over them. They rumbled again, but this time it almost felt reassuring rather than menacing. He turned back to Yuchan. “What do you say? Do you want to leave with us?”

Yuchan bit his lip, torn between the burden he’d borne since he was four and the option being offered to him that seemed almost too good to be true. “We don’t even know if there’s anything waiting for us outside our town,” Yuchan said.

“We don’t,” Jun agreed.

“Doesn’t that make it more interesting?” Byeongkwan asked, grinning.

Yuchan finally cracked a smile and, though it was small, it shone like the sun peeking through the clouds.

 

* * *

 

One day it rained in a small town where it nearly never did. Those who lived there looked outside their windows in shock, terrified by the thought of a storm appearing, however the rain was far from their usual torrential downpours. One by one, the people of the town chanced leaving their warm houses and going outside into the rain, the drops gentle on their skin and the clouds only a light gray.

At this time, five boys slipped away. Past the large iron gates that kept the town closed off, they stumbled down the now muddy dirt path, voices light and spirits high. No one knew what happened to those who walked away from the town, but they seemed to know where they were going.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from the Undertale OST (and yes I wrote the whole story based on the title). It's also based on the short story "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas", which is one of my favorites. 
> 
> This story was kind of experimental for me since it's a different writing style from my usual one that relies more on fun and lighthearted dialogue.
> 
> It's up to you if their decision was the right one.


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